Right now I have a great opportunity to test my skills in the internet marketing arena; a relatively unknown potential gold field that is growing rapidly. Perhaps what best sums it up is the label given to a training series: The Bum Marketing Method. This basically is saying that even a bum can go into a library and then, by utilising the internet, can promote other people’s products and earn commissions. The problem with this method is of course, how do you know a product is going to sell? After reading that one guy had written over 100 articles promoting a product without any success, I was put off giving it a try from the idea of wasting countless hours doing something that wasn’t even furthering my skills in anything.

Now I’ve been given a chance from a different perspective. A client of mine, Maz and Ray Fellowes, wrote a book for kids teaching them how to psychologically protect themselves from bullying as well as general tips to help improve their lives. Their website is one of the first I made, and recently I made them a “landing” page for their audiobook version. A “landing” page is called as such because it is where potential customers “land” from other sites promoting the product. My plan (a basic internet marketing strategy) is to place articles around the web that give valuable information away while subtly recommending the audiobook product (with a link). Often you browse the web and ignore blatant self promotion or ads, refusing to click on such pompousness; but subtle links embedded in seemingly objective text you click without thinking. Once they’ve clicked through, it’s up to the landing page to convince them that the product will solve their problems.

This is where it gets hard. How do you create a landing page that converts? It could be called an art-form; gently entangling the customer without scaring them away with traditional “salesman” techniques. After performing some research I realised that people still fall for a lot of “salesly” writing. Here are some interesting insights from an internet marketer:

• Adding a 365 day guarantee to increased sales by 5.6% and reduced returns by 38%!
• A dark red shade in the headline increased conversions by 28%
• Adding testimonial box with a light yellow background and a red headline at the top, increased conversions by 34%
• In the order box, adding a retail price with a strike through and then listing the sale price underneath, increased conversions by 14%
• Placing a small video in the payment area explaining site security increased conversions by 12%
• Adding a product image at the top of the sales page increased conversions by 15% and decreased cart abandonment dramatically
• Changing the price point so it ends in 7 (e.g. $97) increased conversions by 13%
• Placing a phone number on a website for taking phone orders increased conversions by 30%

To finish with here is my template I created from looking at other people’s sales pages: